


Absolution

by lonelywalker



Category: Brimstone
Genre: Adultery, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-18
Updated: 2011-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-18 08:11:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four lies and the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absolution

A year after he returned the last of the 113 to Hell's warm embrace, Zeke had discovered something new about the Devil (Lucifer, the Prince of Lies, the King of Kidders, his old boss, his one-time best friend).

He was surprisingly good at pool.

Zeke had occasionally spotted him (or thought he did) just hovering at the edge of his field of vision, or quickly vanishing around a corner. He'd taken it for an ill omen at first, while he was re-adapting to his life with Rosalyn back in the good old familiar 1980s, but after a while those sightings had become reassuring. He'd missed the old bastard a little, even as he enjoyed being with Ros, even as he submerged himself in the renewed challenge of old-fashioned policework. Much as the Devil had annoyed him, showing up when he least expected it, Zeke had grown to enjoy their sparring matches. He'd even started to _like_ the guy.

So when his friends from work didn't show up at the bar one night, and a dark stranger in the corner bought him a drink, he was far more delighted than fearful. He almost - _almost_ \- gave the Devil a hug.

"Mr. Stone," said that same, almost theatrical voice, and Zeke could sense the smirk hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat. "Enjoying yourself?"

Zeke pulled up a chair, and they drank, and talked, and reminisced over old battles just as though they really were two police buddies meeting again for the first time in years. After a while, the Devil took off his hat and picked up a cue, and resoundingly whipped everyone in the bar at pool. Zeke wasn't even sure that he had cheated.

In a nearby motel, half-drunk, he sucked the Devil's cock until they both came, hot and messy in a cheap room.

He told Ros that he'd been held up at Central Booking, and that was the first lie.

***

After the first time, unless he and Ros are on vacation or he genuinely is held up at work, he meets the Devil in that same motel. Zeke brings the beer, and the Devil brings... only himself, usually, but that's enough. After fifteen years in Hell, and almost two more as the walking dead, Zeke has absolutely no one he can share that experience with - Kane is still an oblivious kid in high school, and he doesn't want to trouble Father Horn with crazy tales of demons and the afterlife.

But he can lie in a motel room with the Devil's arm around him, and talk until he's hoarse or passes out from the beer. He can make love to someone who understands, who genuinely knows _everything_ about him and has never once looked at him with that expression of fear and hatred he just knows would come over Rosalyn if he even told her a fraction of the truth.

"I've been to Hell," he says, marveling at how relaxed he can sound as he says it, lying on an unmade bed, watching the Devil watching him. "Fifteen years. Fifteen years in _Hell_."

He wonders if Rosalyn even believes it exists. She's not the most religious person, and apparently not even the devout agree about the existence of the Devil's lonely realm. Hell to him had been a joke - fire and brimstone that could be used to scare small children into believing. His real concerns had been rape and murder on the streets of New York. Surely nothing could be worse than that? The idea of his soul being condemned to eternal torment had never worried him too much. He could _feel_ it if he stubbed his toe, and could genuinely fear some nutcase ripping off his fingernails or kicking him in the nuts. But his soul? He could never even imagine what that might be like.

The memory of it had faded once he'd been returned to Earth, the immediacy of it dulled. And now… Now that he's truly alive once more, it's hard to even grasp what had happened to him in those fifteen years, to hold a clear image of the place in his mind. Sometimes, he can even cling to the Devil, and truly think of him as a friend, a lover, rather than his one-time jailer.

"It was all a bad dream," the Devil says in tones smoother than normal, dark eyes fixed on Zeke's. "You were traumatized, Ezekiel. Anyone could be excused for losing touch with reality for a while, after everything you and Rosalyn went through."

Perhaps he should nod and agree, and accept this life, accept the lie. It would be easier to live without his knowledge of the afterlife, of the hellfire that might well await him again, that might even await Ros…

Zeke's fingers tangle in the Devil's hair. Pull tight. "Don't ever tell me that," he says in a voice that might even unsettle the Prince of Darkness. "It was real. It was all real."

The Devil laughs, and promises to behave himself. This is, as one might expect, the second lie.

***

Zeke introduces the Devil to Ros on her birthday. He doesn't have much choice. There's cake, and wine, and a few friends from work, and a fallen angel standing in the doorway with a perfectly giftwrapped box in his arms. If he can give the Devil any compliment at all, it's that his flawless sense of how to tempt even the most discerning mortal makes him a great birthday guest.

Ros loves him at first sight, mostly ignoring Zeke's complete inability to actually introduce this newcomer. The Devil is, after all, a snappy dresser with a quick smile and a wicked sense of humor that's always hilariously funny to anyone who doesn't realize he's being entirely serious.

As ever, Zeke cracks open a beer and slouches on the couch with some genuine buddies from the force, and does his best to ignore the Devil's antics. He's sure that they'll see each other later, when Zeke's happily numbed by alcohol and the Devil's still as sharp as he always is. They'll wrap themselves in each other, finding solace there, finding reminders of grace and damnation in each fumbled kiss.

It's only the sound of broken glass that makes him bolt from the couch, take the stairs two at a time, and see everything he'd hoped he'd never witness in this lifetime.

"It wasn't her fault," the Devil tells him later, sprawled on the motel room bed, shirtless, gorgeous, hateful. "Well, it was. But I _am_ the Devil, you know."

Zeke is busy at the sink, trying to scrub the very memory out of his skin. "You did that to hurt me. Just to hurt me."

The Devil blinks at him in mock surprise. "My dear Detective, you say that as if it's entirely unprecedented. Don't I do everything to hurt you? Aren't I leading you astray from your marriage, from that _right path_ you value so much?"

 _But I love you_ , Zeke wants to say, but he flings the soap at the Devil's head instead. And misses.

Ros discovers she's pregnant by the end of the next month. Zeke, imagining a dark-haired, dark-eyed boy with a vicious smile, tells her he couldn't be happier.

***

Their son is blond and bright and bubbly, and they call him Gabriel, partly because Ros likes Biblical names, partly because Zeke wants to ward off bad omens. Perhaps, if he were serious about that, he should have made a bigger effort to keep the Devil out of their lives. But he's the Devil. To him, _not_ being sent a Christmas card is tantamount to being welcomed into the bosom of the family.

And the Devil can be charming when he wants to be, can be polite and contrite and apologize to Ros and pretend to be going to therapy. Perhaps he even is. Zeke can imagine him having a _fabulous_ time tormenting the Freudians, and the Devil doesn't even _have_ a mother.

Predictably, Gabe and the Devil get along like a house on fire, even though Zeke has banned all matches from their home, even though Zeke is just _waiting_ for that day when the Devil takes things a step too far, when...

When he's three years old, Zeke's son sees him fucking the Devil in the ass in his parents' bedroom.

Ros leaves with him the next day, going to stay with her parents, going as far from both of them as she possibly can. And Zeke can't quite shake the idea that she's running from him far more than she's running from the Devil. The Devil's a nothing to her. A family friend with a burning sexuality. But Zeke... Zeke's supposed to be _good_.

"I'm supposed to be the good guy," he murmurs into the Devil's shoulder, his body drenched with sweat, semen underneath his fingernails. "A husband. A father. A _cop_ , for fuck's sake. And you've taken all of that away from me."

The Devil holds him wordlessly. Even Zeke knows it's a lie.

***

The next day, Ezekiel Stone wakes up dead for the second time in his life.

He knows the burn of Hell through his eyelids, the light that's more terrible than darkness, the touch of inhuman fingers on his arm.

"Shhh," the Devil says, no longer a man, kissing away tears. "Rosalyn and Gabriel will be safe. I promise that, Ezekiel. I'll never harm them."

 _Liar_ , Zeke thinks, blind and crippled, as the Devil envelops him in warmth and, finally, takes him home.


End file.
